Best Graphic Card 4 My Dell 4500

[koerbershawn]

I got a dell 4500 with a nividia geforce 2 mx 400 series and it just wont play any newer games ie doom 3 half life 2 all those great games... it will play games like max payne 2 and true crime streets of la but the graphics on those games arent even that good looking with this card...... anyway what is my best option for a good performance card for my 4500 dell???

 

[swker98]

do you have an agp slot

 

[swker98]

sorry dubble posted :dead:

 

[koerbershawn]

ya i got a 4x agp slot on my dell system

 

[swker98]

nice thats very good, this leaves you room for a good upgrade

what is yor budget for a new card
do you live in the usa?
(so i know where to look for cards)

 

[koerbershawn]

im not worried about my budget i can save up for a great card bc thats what i want i live in atlanta usa

 

[Sharkfood]

Top of the line for AGP would be either:
1) 6800GT/GS for an Nvidia chip card
2) X800/X850 series card for an ATI chipset card.

The both have their strengths and weaknesses so neither is the "end-all/be-all" choice, despite what some might try to persuade as otherwise. It'll be more a matter of price and personal opinion.

The BFG 6800GS AGP is around $200 and is quite a steal. The ATI AIW X800XT is about $239 and is also a steal at these prices. The 6800/X800 are both 16-pipeline, DX9.0 videocards that perform admirably in modern games. The rest of your system may at that point be a bottleneck though.

 

[koerbershawn]

thanks...so those chips would provide excellent quality on games like doom 3 half-life 2 etc...???

 

[swker98]

if you have 100-150 you can get a good card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681413022 <- Budget
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131412 <- Budget
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121206 <- Recomended


Expensive but better play
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102608
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814140067

 

[Sharkfood]

thanks...so those chips would provide excellent quality on games like doom 3 half-life 2 etc...???

Yes.. to the limit of your CPU speed and memory/memory speed.

Keep in mind- some games like Doom3 are very CPU intensive so while these videocards remove graphics bottlenecks in performance, they can only produce the kinds of framerates your CPU/memory can crank out as well.

Of course, there are benefits even with this as even a very, very slow system that can only muster like 35 fps... can still obtain close to 35 fps by increasing the resolution, adding antialiasing and anisotropic filtering and cranking up the game video details. As the videocard mainly handles these extras, it doesn't have much impact on framerate as the videocard is mostly twiddling it's thumbs behind the CPU/memory.